Below is a list of art fairs in the northern Illinois area that I found for the next few months. There are probably more, but this is a start. If you are looking for a good time, art fairs are usually a lot of fun. If you go, please collect business cards from vendors and any literature about the event. Get them to me and we can create a data base of vendors for our future event. Remember, no database, no event. Let's all get behind this and have some fun. Pick a fair and a couple of other Rotarians and make a fun day of it.
Posted by Ryan Hyland, Rotary International on May 25, 2021
When Julie Dockrill was approached by the Rotary Club of Waimate, New Zealand, to train medical workers in Mongolia in safer childbirth practices, she wasn’t sure how much of a difference she could make — despite her 20 years of experience as a midwife and childbirth educator.
At the time, Dockrill wasn’t very familiar with Rotary’s work, nor was she aware of the high infant mortality rate in Mongolia, an Asian country located between Russia and China. But she agreed to participate if it meant saving the life of even one child.
Eight years later, the project’s success has exceeded her expectations. Dockrill, now a member of the Rotary Club of Timaru, says she never imagined that the work she began in 2013 would lead to the adoption of a nationwide health care framework that has contributed to the steady drop in Mongolia’s maternal and infant mortality rates.
The project, facilitated by Waimate club member Gary Dennison, was originally conceived as an initiative to supply clean water to a remote area in Mongolia. Plans shifted when a community assessment determined that the terrain meant a water well wasn’t feasible.
Dennison explored alternatives. He learned through Rotary connections in Mongolia that maternal and child health services and updated and safer childbirth practices were needed. So his club and the Rotary Club of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, devised a new plan: a four-phase project in which a vocational training team would offer childbirth education to health care workers.
Dockrill, who came recommended through a colleague, was tasked with leading a five-person team of midwives from Australia, Mongolia, and New Zealand, and developing training materials for more than 100 university students and midwives, nurses, and other health care professionals in Mongolia.
The maternal and infant mortality rates in Mongolia were falling, but mothers and infants were still dying at alarming rates. In 2011, the government made a commitment to reduce the infant mortality rate to 15 out of every 1,000 live births, which would be a drastic reduction from its 2009 rate of nearly 27 deaths per 1,000 live births. Comparatively, the infant mortality rate in New Zealand that same year was just five deaths per 1,000 live births.
Causes of death frequently involved asphyxia, respiratory distress, and congenital defects, but Dockrill says the problem really came from poor prenatal care.
“Before the childbirth education course was embedded, there were only standard visits to hospitals and clinics for pregnant women,” Dockrill says. “The care was just focused on the physical well-being of the mother. The information mothers were given was very basic.”
Dockrill focused on topics that weren’t being discussed with expectant mothers, such as...
May 25, 1787 – The Constitutional Convention began in Philadelphia with delegates from seven states forming a quorum.
May 24, 1844 – Samuel Morse taps out “What hath God wrought” in the world’s first telegraph message.
May 27, 1937 – More than 200,000 people celebrate the grand opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
May 26, 1940 – The Dunkirk evacuation began on the northern coast of France to save Allied forces trapped by the German Army. Vessels of all shapes and sizes ferried over 340,000 soldiers across the English Channel concluding on June 2.
Julie Dockrill, a member of the Rotary Club of Timaru, New Zealand, was a recipient of Rotary's 2021 People of Action: Champions of Health, for improving maternal and child health practices in Mongolia.
